In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of sharing the gospel and saving sinners. He encourages believers to make themselves available and live in a loving way towards others, creating opportunities for conversations about Christ. The preacher highlights the power of the gospel to transform individuals from the inside out, giving them a new heart and mind. He uses the example of the apostle Paul, who was once a blasphemer and persecutor, but was transformed by the gospel and became a faithful minister. The preacher emphasizes that the solution to the world's problems is still the gospel, as it has the power to change individuals and bring about God's will in their lives.

Open up your Bible with me to Paul's first epistle to Timothy. And we're going to pick up once again this evening in the first chapter of First Timothy, we began our study last week and. We didn't get quite as far as I was thinking we were going to get, but we did get basically through the introductory aspect of the epistle. So we pick up tonight in verse five. But remember, Timothy, Paul is writing to Timothy. Timothy is a young man that he discipled, that he led to Christ, that he discipled. He's Paul's associate in ministry. And Paul, they were in Ephesus together. Paul had to leave and go into Macedonia, and he left Timothy there. And Timothy was to urge those that were there not to be giving heed to fables and endless genealogies and getting caught up in things that cause disputes rather than godly edification, which is in the faith. So Paul was concerned that the church that they had founded there in Ephesus, that through the infiltration of others with different motives and things that that the believers would just get caught up in a bunch of useless kinds of things, just disputes and wranglings and things like that. And of course, he knew that all of that was a big waste of time and and just a dead end street. And he so, you know, anticipating all of the things that could possibly kind of go wrong in a fellowship, Paul writes to Timothy and he instructs Timothy in order that he might pass that instruction on to the church so that the church can be what God intended it to be. You know, that's been the big battle all throughout church history. God has a model. He has a picture. He laid it out for us in the New Testament. He he, you know, the book of Acts gives us several pictures of the church in action. The epistles give us all kinds of different instruction about what's to be happening in the church. And yet the big battle historically has been to keep the church what it's supposed to be, because there's this tendency for it to to just constantly be drifting away from God's ideal. And of course, there's the devil who's going to be trying to make that happen. There are evil men that are going to come and they're going to try to divert the course of the church. So it's a constant battle. And Paul, in writing to Timothy, he uses frequently military terms to remind Timothy that he is in a battle and that he needs to wage a good warfare. And so picking up in verse five, he says, Now, the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience and from sincere faith. So the purpose of the commandment, now the commandment here is not, as we might assume, necessarily the commandment of God. It's not the word that's generally used to describe the commandment of God. It's actually the command that Paul is giving Timothy. And what Paul is saying is that. The the intention of my instruction to you and then you imparting this to them is so that they would fulfill what God ultimately desires in all of his people. You see what the Lord is looking for in our lives is love. That's what. The desired result of his saving work in our lives is it's love that flows from a pure heart, a good conscience and sincere faith. And so that's that's the primary thing, that's the supreme thing. And Jesus himself, you remember. They're just before he was about to go to the cross, he said to his disciples, he said, A new commandment I give you. And that commandment is that you love one another as I have loved you. And so the emphasis over and over again in the scriptures on the love of God toward us, the love of God working in us, the love of God flowing through us to others, that's. That's what God is looking for in his church. That's what church leaders ought to be looking to see develop within those fellowships that they have the oversight of. That's the purpose of the commandment. It's love from a pure heart. Now, the word love here, of course, is the the Greek word agape. And it's not a passing emotion. Nor is it a gushy sentimentalism that the apostle is talking about here, but he's talking about the real thing as demonstrated in Christ's love for us. You know, it's easy to say. I love you. It's easy to, you know, just sometimes even sort of feign that you love people. I've seen it. I've experienced it. People say, hey, I love you, bro, I love you. But, you know, they're backstabbing you, they're backbiting you, they're full of bitterness toward you, they're angry at you. And yeah, oh, but, you know, hey, bro, I love you. No, that's not it. No, love is it's not just words, it's it's action. And and this is what God is wanting to see in our lives, the kind of love that Jesus demonstrated. Toward his disciples, toward all of those that he ministered to, even toward his enemies. It's a kind of love that Paul defined for us in First Corinthians, Chapter 13. Now, I've pointed this out before, but I want to point it out again. The Greek word is agape and you can go into your Greek lexicon. You can go into some of the different Greek word study tools that are available and you can look up a definition for agape. And it will give you a definition. It will give you sometimes a few different definitions. But, you know, the best definition, you don't even have to go to one of those sources. The best definition is found in First Corinthians 13, verses four through seven. Paul defined the word for us. The amazing thing about this word agape is that it wasn't really a common word in the Greek language. It was a word in the Greek language, but it wasn't common. It wasn't it wasn't frequently used to express love. The Greeks, it was just one of those words were just sort of lying there waiting for somebody to come along and pick it up and utilize it. And guess what happened? The Lord picked it up and utilized it. And Paul defined it for us there in First Corinthians chapter 13. Let me read to you from a couple of different translations. Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged. It is never glad about injustice, but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up. Love never loses faith. Love is always hopeful and endures through every circumstance. That's from the New Living Translation. Now, let me read to you from the New English Bible. Love is patient. Love is kind and envies no one. Love is never boastful, nor conceited, nor rude, nor selfish, nor quick to take offense. Love keeps no score of wrongs, does not gloat over other men's sins, but delights in the truth. There is nothing love cannot face. There is no limit to its faith, its hope and its endurance. That's the kind of love that God is looking to see being worked out in our lives, being manifest through our lives. It's the love that comes from God to us and flows through us then to other people. And that's what everything is sort of all about. That's what it's all boiled down to. God is wanting to develop a community of people that love one another. And as this community develops, that's rooted in love. This is the most attractive thing in all of the world to those that are outside. You know, so often we think so many other things are, you know, the thing, the most important thing. But the scriptures over and over again take us back to love. Sometimes we think knowledge is the most important thing. We talked a little bit about that last time, but it's easy to get caught up in that trap of, oh, I, you know, I just need to know more. And if I knew these things, then I could really have a great impact for the Lord. Now, I'm not putting down knowledge. Of course, knowledge is important, but it's not the most important thing. And sometimes what happens is when you get a whole lot of knowledge, then you depend on the knowledge. And so as you're seeking to, you know, lead people to Christ, a lot of times it turns into really just an argumentative kind of an approach. Because after all, you know, and it's love that is the real key. I was talking to someone just yesterday and we were talking about Islam and we were talking about an event actually that occurred here in Orange County today. And, you know, in reference to the anniversary of 9-11, they were doing an event that was that was informing people on the subject of Islam. And the people last last week, some people came and they told me about the event. They were very nice people. They were Middle Eastern themselves. They'd grown up in an Islamic culture and they were very aware of the the dangers of Islam. And so anyway, they were having this event and it sounded like a good event. But as I looked over the schedule, there was there was a certain individual that was speaking there. And right when I saw his name, I thought, oh, darn, why did they have him? Now, they would say, well, he is so knowledgeable. He knows so much about Islam. He does know much. He is very knowledgeable. But in my experience with this person, what I've seen, what I've observed, what I've listened to, there's not a whole lot of love in this presentation. It's very combative. It's very angry. It's very aggressive. And so anyway, I was talking to this friend and we were talking about that subject. And he said to me, he said, you know, what's being discovered is that as Muslims are coming out of Islam to faith in Christ, of course, they're beginning to share their testimonies. And they're talking about the things that really minister to them. And this is what he told me. Here's the primary thing that they're saying that led them out of Islam to Christ was the love they found in genuine Christians. And the way Christians in love told them the truth is revealed in the Bible. You know, it's so easy to get in attack mode. It's so easy to want to go out and just lop off heads for the Lord. You know, you've got your sword, it's sharpened and you're going to go out and just, you know, take off some heads. But that's not the way to do it. Paul wrote to the Ephesians and he reminded them of the importance of speaking the truth in love. And so that's it, Paul says, the purpose of the commandment is love. From a pure heart, a good conscience and from sincere faith, from which some having strayed have turned aside to idle talk. So this is the danger, straying away from the main thing and getting off into. Non-essentials. Idle talk. And this particular group that Paul was concerned about. They were desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor the things which they affirm. So in Paul's day, there were those that they wanted to be teachers of the law, and that was a. That was a prestigious position to some degree, and so they were motivated by pride, but they they wanted to be teachers of the law. But Paul says regarding them, they do not understand what they say nor the things which they affirm. But we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully. You see, the problem was they didn't understand the law, they wanted to be teachers of the law, but they didn't understand the true nature of it, the true purpose of it. They didn't understand why God actually had given the law. And so they were taking and trying to impose the law upon these young Christians. Now, trying to apply the law to Christians is wrong for the simple reason that the law is not made for a righteous person. And that's what the apostle goes on. And he says here, we know that the law is good if if one uses it lawfully. What does he mean by that? If one understands it correctly and applies it properly. But whenever you try to apply the law to Christians, you don't understand it and you're you're actually seeking to misapply it because the law, as Paul goes on to say, is not made for a righteous person. The law is not made for a righteous person. If men were righteous, there would never have been any laws ever given. And when a man is declared righteous and when a man begins to live righteously. Then he's no longer subject to the law, he doesn't need to be subject to the law. Boy, I can relate to this so much just from my own life personally, before I was a Christian, I went out of my way to break the law. I just I just had that rebellious thing in me. If a sign said, don't do something, you could be absolutely certain that would be the thing that I was going to do. But, you know, since I became a Christian, everything changed. I just no longer desired. To do those things, I no longer desired to break the law. So the law doesn't really have any bearing on me. I don't need it. And that's what Paul is saying, when a person becomes a Christian, there's no need for the law because the law was given to restrain evil. And when a person is converted, when a person is regenerated, when a person is born again and the spirit of God is dwelling in them, then it is that person's delight to do what is right. So there isn't this need to have this outside force imposing these rules and regulations. There's always been, though, this temptation in the church, not just back in the apostolic period, but on down through to this very day. This this tendency to bring in all the rules, to bring in the regulations and to lay this kind of stuff. On the people's backs, but that's not what the Christian faith is all about, the Christian faith isn't about a bunch of rules. It's not about a list of do's and don'ts. It's about a loving relationship with God, and because I love God, because he loved me first, you know, I don't need that list of rules and regulations because I don't have any desire to do those things anyway. You know, it would be like. Having married my wife. Then somebody handed me a list of things that I must do because I'm married now, you must kiss your wife at least once a week, you must buy her a card for her birthday, you must take her out to dinner on your anniversary. I don't need somebody to tell me that. Because I'm going to kiss her a lot more than one time a week, and I want to do good things for her. Not just on her birthday, but as often as I can, and I want to go out and have a nice time, not just once a year and on our anniversary, I want to go out and have a good time with her always. Why? Because I love her. And that's the kind of thing that we have with the Lord, we have a loving relationship with God, it's between us and God, and so I don't need all of these things telling me don't do this and you've got to do that. And whenever. Well, intended, but misguided people come in and start slapping the rules down. Man, the spirit is just quenched and and all the the beauty and the freedom and the glory of just that loving relationship is quenched, and Paul understood that, and that's why he fought with everything in him against that kind of thing happening back in his time. Because the law is not made for a righteous person, now he goes on and he tells us the kind of people that the law is made for knowing that the law is not made for a righteous person, but for the lawless and insubordinate for the ungodly and for sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for fornicators, for sodomites, for kidnappers, for liars, for perjurers. And if there is any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust. So Paul says now this is where the law has application. It has application to the lawless, and I think it's important that we we give a bit of a definition of each of these words, the word lawless refers to those who knowingly break the law, not someone who's ignorantly breaking the law, but someone who's intentionally knowingly breaking the law. The insubordinate referred to those who refuse to submit to any authority. So a person who is just in rebellion to authority and then. He uses the term ungodly. And this term speaks of positive and active irreligion, it speaks of human nature in battle array against God. So this is active hostility toward God, this is what we see in atheism today, there's an active hostility toward God, that's what Paul is talking about there. And then he says sinners and the word simply refers to those who are without a moral compass, but then he mentions those who are unholy. And this is an interesting term here. Because it refers to those who would violate the eternal ordinances, it refers to those who spurn those things that are part of the very constitution of the universe. The everlasting sanctities, the person described here is worse than a mere lawbreaker, he is the man who violates the ultimate decencies of life, where we have a current example of what is being described here with those who are trying to impose gay marriage on. And. The whole world, the eternal sanctities. They're they're going against all of history, they're going against every culture for all time and just very, very obstinately. Insisting that this must be accepted. That's what Paul is describing here, that same sort of attitude, and then he says profane, a person who is morally filthy. And then he goes on and. He becomes more specific in addressing sins for murderers of fathers and mothers. Now, it says murderers of fathers and mothers, it could actually be those who strike their father or their mother, but in some cases actually killing them. It's really speaking of a youth culture that's completely out of control, a youth culture that's in total rebellion to authority, hostile to and out of control in regard to even their own parents. And then he says for manslayers. And that would be a reference to murder generally for fornicators, the Greek word is an all inclusive word for sexual immorality, for sodomites. This word. Can and should probably these days be translated homosexual because that's what's being referred to here. And then he speaks of kidnappers, of liars and perjurers, but notice this and if there's any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine. Now, the word sound here is an interesting Greek word. We get our English word hygienic from this Greek word. So he says if there's any other thing that is contrary to sound or wholesome or healthy teaching, in other words, what he's saying is all of these things are inconsistent with a healthy life. All of these things are inconsistent with a wholesome society. In other words, any society. That tolerates or even worse, promotes this kind of activity is a society that is terminally ill, our society is terminally ill. You see, here's the thing. We're not the first people in history. To do the things that we're doing as a culture. We're not the first people in history to try to throw off all restraints. We're not the first generation to shake our fist at God. We're not the first generation to try to change. The everlasting constitution of the universe, others have done it before, they did it back at Paul's time, and it was into that world that the apostles went with the gospel. You see, sometimes. I find that we in this current generation of Christians, especially in this country. We tend to think that the way things are presently and the way they're continuing to go is is a situation that we alone in history are experiencing. No one else has ever encountered this kind of a thing before. And a lot of times you hear, you know, just sort of a defeatist kind of a perspective on all of it. And the idea is sometimes seeming to come across that because of the way things are culturally now that the church really doesn't have much of a chance in this environment. This is the world that the church was born into. These are the kinds of things Paul is not describing 2004, he is. But he's also describing. The first century. The century that he ministered in, and do you see a parallel between what was happening in his generation and what's happening in our generation? You certainly do. Because we have kind of come, in a sense, culturally full circle. Where there was a period of time where the Christian message had an impact upon our culture, so certain things because of the Christian influence, not because everybody was Christians, not because our institutions were all Christian institutions or anything like that, but because there was a cultural influence of Christianity and sort of an idea of morality and decency. A lot of things were just simply not done in our society because it was inconsistent with the cultural views of the time. But as time has passed, the influence of Christianity upon the culture has decreased. And so now what's happening is we're just seeing what every other generation, what every other culture has seen without the influence of Christianity. Now, of course, the apostles went into a world that had never heard of Christianity, they'd never heard of Jesus Christ, they didn't know anything about the gospel, they didn't really know much at all about one God who created the world and loved the world. They were heathens, they were pagans, and because they were heathen and pagan, they lived a certain way. That's where we're at today. And what I feel that we need to realize is that the gospel that had the power to change the world in Paul's day is the same gospel that we preach today, and it still has power to change people today. But, you know, the apostles didn't really think in terms of creating Christian nations. That's something that came along quite a bit later in the church's history, and you can actually attribute much of what went wrong in the church to. Trying to marry the church in the state to one another. The apostles didn't think in those terms, they thought in terms of individual salvations, they thought in terms of getting people saved. One person at a time and then letting God take those individuals, whoever they were, and from whatever walk of life they were and work in them and through them in their sphere of influence. That's pretty much the way they thought. And I think that that is the way that we need to be thinking in these days, because I think it's utterly foolish and I think it's wrong and I think it's hopeless to think that we're ever going to turn the Western world back into a Christianized cultural type of an experience. I don't think that's ever going to happen, but that doesn't mean anything. Because that's not what God intended in the first place. God intended that we go out and preach the gospel to people and people get saved. And then those people impact, as I said, their sphere of influence. Now, the law, as I mentioned, the law was there to restrain evil. To restrain evil men, the gospel is intended to change evil men, and just as the apostles went out into that world and their solution to the situation. Was not to somehow alter the form of government, their solution was to preach the gospel to individual people and let them get converted and let God's will begin to be accomplished in their lives. So as we look around the world today, we need to understand the solution is still the same. It's the gospel. It's people getting converted. You see, the gospel. Is unique, there's nothing like it. It's the power of God to salvation, to everyone who believes and what the gospel is able to do that no government on the face of the earth can do. No legislation from any government on the face of the earth can do. The gospel is able to change a man from the inside out, give him a new heart and a new mind, a new way of looking at things and a new way of living. That's what the gospel does. Now, in case. There was any temptation. To doubt that Paul uses himself as an illustration of that reality, and I think Christ Jesus, our Lord, who has enabled me because he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry, although I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor and an insolent man, Paul saying to. Timothy, he's saying, Timothy, don't don't let these people get sidetracked into arguments and disputes about the law. These guys don't know what they're talking about. The law is to restrain evil. That's the valid use of the law. The gospel is to. Bring power to people who are evil. So that they can become righteous, Paul's whole message over and over again would be get the gospel out, get the gospel to people. And he says, because that's what happened to me. I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor and an insolent man, the word insolent is interesting, it means a person who is so arrogant, arrogant beyond. On. Anything you could tolerate and not only arrogant, but violent. Hostile, antagonistic toward anyone who would even remotely disagree with them. So Paul describes himself as the kind of person you would never want to have a conflict with, he would just destroy you, but. He says this, I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief, there are those who are great sinners and yet their sin is in many ways rooted in ignorance. Those are the ones to whom God shows mercy. There are others who are also great sinners, but they're not sending an ignorance. They're knowingly in rebellion, they're knowingly sinning, I think of. As an example, I think of those today and. Positions within the church, the church in the in the bigger sense, you know, Christendom, as it's called sometimes just the whole collective body of what's known worldwide as Christianity. I think of those who have gone to seminary, I think of those who have their theological degrees, but yet they deny. The truth of the scripture. They deny the deity of Christ, they deny that he died for the sins of the world, they deny that he rose from the dead and so forth, those are the ones. That need to be most concerned. Because the judgment upon them is going to be more severe. I think of those who are in the scientific community who have studied. Biology, biochemistry. Anatomy, whatever the case might be, and they've seen the fingerprints of God all over creation, but they stand in arrogance against the idea of a creator. You see, they're not doing it ignorantly. They're doing it knowingly. And for those who are knowingly rebelling. Boy, the judgment is going to be that much more severe, but Paul says concerning himself, he did it ignorantly in unbelief and the grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant with faith and love, which are in Christ Jesus. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance. Now, evidently, there was this saying. That was going around among the believers in that day, and Paul grabs on to it and he says, this is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Do we know that? Well, of course we know that the Bible says that over and over again, doesn't it? But do we really know it? When we see certain people who are sinners, do we say, man, Jesus came to save that person, or do we say, oh, God, destroy that guy. Newcombe, wipe them off the planet, sometimes we do that, don't we? But see, those are the people that Christ Jesus came into the world to save. You know, testimonies are are wonderful things, and I would imagine that if we had the time and we could bring some of you up here tonight, we would be stunned at your testimony. We just wouldn't be able to imagine that you could have been the person that you previously were. And it's always an amazing thing to to listen to a testimony where somebody has really been a sinner, a rank, vile sinner, and to see the power of Christ come upon their lives and to see them change to such a degree that you would never, ever dream that they could have actually done those things. They couldn't have possibly been that kind of person. That's the power of the gospel. It's so radically changes our lives. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Paul said, that's what happened with me. And we need to remember that that's a faithful saying. And as we see sin. And we do see it, don't we? It's proliferating in our society. It's overflowing. It's becoming more and more and more obvious. We as believers should not despair. We should not go into seclusion. And say, oh, no, look what's happening. We need to realize, no, this is the time when we begin to shine. You know, people have said to me so often, you know, how did you live in Europe? I mean, that place is so wicked and it's post-Christian, you know, it is it's all of that. But there's something that when you're in the midst of it and you're you're shining. There's something about it, you just think, man, this is the way it's supposed to be. You see, the darker it gets. The brighter our light is able to shine. And so rather than, you know, wringing our hands in despair. Rather than throwing up our arms in frustration and just saying, oh, it's hopeless. We need to realize that this is our time. This is our hour, because Christ Jesus came into the world to say sinners, you know, back 50 years ago when the culture was Christianized still to a large degree. You know what the difficulty for the church was back then? The great difficulty back then was to convince anybody they were a sinner. Because they didn't. What do you mean we're sinners? We don't do bad things. We even go to church on Sunday and, you know, we try to be as nice and polite as we can and so forth. And that was the big struggle that the church had. Nobody believed they were sinners. You know what? We don't have that state today for the most part. People know they're sinners, they're quite aware of it. And so in a sense, we've got, you know, somewhat of a better situation in regard to evangelism. Because we don't have to so much convince a person, it's obvious their lifestyle is blatantly broadcasting the fact that they're sinners. Remember when Paul went to the city of Corinth and, you know, we studied through Acts together, Corinth was a notoriously wicked city. And Paul went there after he had been through numerous trials and difficulties, he had come on the tail end of of being persecuted in three or four of the different towns that he had been in. And when he came into the city of Corinth, he was afraid. He was afraid for his life, he was afraid that he was going to be attacked and brutalized. And we read there in the 18th chapter of Acts how the Lord appeared to Paul and he said, Paul, do not be afraid. For no one shall attack you and harm you. For I have many people in this city, Corinth, that wicked, vile, corrupt city. Jesus said, Paul, I have many people in this city. You know, my friends, there are many people out there that are waiting to hear the gospel, many people that are waiting to hear it. We've got to remember. Christ, Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and we need to boldly take that gospel to those centers and we will see men and women. Like Paul, people that you would have never dreamed could be saved, getting saved. You know, Cheryl was telling me and she's told me this number of times as we've talked over the years about these things. But remember last Monday, of course, we had the Labor Day picnic out here and we had the groups from the past. And there was one guy that actually wasn't playing last week, but he was here, I saw him. And Cheryl was telling me, you know, she was a little girl at the time, but when the Lord was pouring out his spirit back in those days and all of these people from the hippie counterculture were getting saved out of the drugs and the sexual perversion and all of that, you know, they were having outreaches and things all over Orange County, the fairgrounds and the Long Beach Arena and the different places. And she was saying how they were at at one particular thing. And there was there was this guy who became not going to mention him by name, but he became well known in the Jesus people era. He went on to be a pastor and so forth. But she said the first time she saw him, he was at one of these events, stoned out of his mind on drugs, wearing a wetsuit and doing some effeminate dance in the middle of the crowd. Now, I guarantee you, if somebody were to do that at this stage, we'd grab him by the scruff of the neck and toss him out on their head. What are you doing? You can't do this church, don't you know what you're what do you think you're doing here? And I'm not advocating anarchy in the midst of our assemblies, but, you know, when God starts moving and sinners start getting saved. It's a glorious, awesome, powerful thing, but there's some weird stuff that goes on, too, because weird people start getting saved. Now, we had some trippy stuff in England. One night I was standing there, I looked over and there was a transvestite sitting right there. Just, you know, he was all decked out in his hot pants and his high heeled shoes, and. So I just went over and talked to him, how are you doing now and just realize, you know, God, God brought this guy here tonight. And we just sought to reach out and love to him and he came occasionally and he would come drunk and loaded. Sometimes we tell him, you know, if you're coming like that, you're really you're not going to benefit from what's going on here. But, you know, if you can refrain from that, you're welcome to come. But you see, those are the people Jesus came to save. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. And I really think. That we have to be careful today because, you know, Christians are generally stereotyped as the right wing group of people in the country who hate everybody else and they want to impose this law and this rule and that standard on the rest of the nation and so forth. We have to be careful. Not to get sucked up into that, we really have to be on our guard. You know, Jesus refused to get caught up in a in political debate. Jesus refused to get caught up taking sides politically. Now, obviously, we all have our own political persuasion and we have rights and so forth and we can vote and all that. But, you know, we have to be careful. We have to remember the bigger picture. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. And we don't want to be guilty of giving an impression to sinners that there is no salvation available for them. We want them to see in our lives, we want them to understand. That they can be saved as well, and you know what I found for myself, and maybe you can identify with this, sometimes I have to stop and just go back and reflect on my own past. And I have to remember where God has brought me from, because you can get caught up in your religious thing and you can get all wrapped up in your your righteous view of everything to the extent that you sort of forget where the Lord brought you from. And I think it's good for us to kind of just reflect sometimes back on what we were before and how Christ Jesus saved us. And how his mercy was abundantly poured out upon us. And Paul goes on to say, however, for this reason, I obtain mercy that in me first, Jesus Christ might show all longsuffering as a pattern to those who are going to believe. On him for everlasting life. Listen to that, for this reason, I obtain mercy that in me first, Jesus Christ might show forth all longsuffering as a pattern. Paul said he was the chief of sinners. Basically, what Paul said is if Christ could save me, he can save anybody. And he said he saved me to set a pattern and to show the world that there is not a single person who is not a candidate for salvation. Paul said, I'm the chief of sinners. If Christ can save me, everybody's less of a sinner than I am. If he can save me, he can save anybody. And then he says. Sort of bursting forth in praise now to the king, eternal, immortal, invisible to God, who alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever to the king, eternal, immortal, invisible, God, who alone is wise, all the wisdom and the knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out for who has known the mind of the Lord. We know. God's heart is to save sinners. And that's why we're here, because he saved us, but let's not forget that he wants to save others. And let's make ourselves available and let's live in a way loving one another. And loving those that we come into contact with, let's live in a way. That would lead to opportunities, conversation, situations where others can hear more clearly about Christ Jesus, who came to save sinners.